The newly released music video for Maroon 5's "Animals" has been slammed by the sexual assault support group RAINN (Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network) for glorifying disturbing stalking behaviors.
"Maroon 5's video for 'Animals' is a dangerous depiction of a stalker's fantasy," Katherine Hull Fliflet, RAINN's vice president of communications said in a statement Wednesday, Oct. 1, according to Huffington Post. "And no one should ever confuse the criminal act of stalking with romance. The trivialization of these serious crimes, like stalking, should have no place in the entertainment industry."
The literally bloody music video, which was released Monday, Sept. 29, features the band's lead vocalist Adam Levine as a butcher who stalks an unsuspecting woman, played by his real-life wife supermodel Behati Prinsloo. Levine follows her in the streets, stands outside of Prinsloo's window while she strips, breaks into her home, and ultimately crawls into her bed while she sleeps, totally unaware that of his presence. The last scenes of the video show the real-life couple embracing and kissing each other, fully naked, while being covered with blood.
Charlotte Alter of Time agreed with RAINN's sentiments about the video, writing, "It's disturbing to see Levine glamorized in this video as some kind of hopeless romantic, because all his psychopathic behaviors are recast as attractive qualities."
"Adam Levine rolling around in blood and pretending to be a murderous stalker is scary enough," Alter added. "But casting his real-life-wife as his target suggests that this kind of stalkerdom has some place in healthy relationships, like violence is the underside of love."
Jessica Valenti of The Guardian wrote that aside from the music video, the very message of the song is also particularly disturbing. Valenti wrote that the song suggests "that men are 'animals' with no self control - implies there is nothing we can do about issues of sexual violence. If sexual predators are 'animals,' or 'crazy,' then it absolves us of social responsibility ... because you can't control an animal... It's just in their nature."
As of writing, the music video, which was directed by Samuel Bayer, has already been viewed more than 8.2 million times on YouTube with more than 105,000 likes and 6,800 dislikes.